


The Broken Fissure

by bioticsandheadshots



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Character Study, Developing Friendships, Gen, Introspection, No Romance, One Shot, Snark, hint of Shrios, if you squint hard enough - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 08:40:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15659703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bioticsandheadshots/pseuds/bioticsandheadshots
Summary: A late night encounter between Thane and Miranda shows these two that they have more in common than they think.





	The Broken Fissure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RockPaperbackScissors](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RockPaperbackScissors/gifts).



He slips through the shadows of the ship, the whispers of his movement drowning in the white noise from the engines. The corridors are dark, everyone resting after their narrow escape from the Collector vessel. 

Despite the late hour, he finds he cannot sleep. His soul is restless, struggling with revelations to questions he’d thought long-answered. His flesh mirrors this agitation and he wanders from deck to deck through vents and ducts, paying no mind to the path that he takes for surely one half of him will find its way back, even if the other is lost. 

Ever the while, his soul is searching, trying to come to terms with the sudden want that fills his chest. 

Curiosity beckons to him from ahead, the slant of gold light through a vent catching a shimmer of dust in the air. Sliding forward in the narrow duct, he peers between the cracks into an empty, well-ordered room. Miranda’s chambers are dim, no sign of the raven-haired operative anywhere in sight. 

Before he can slip back the way he came, the scent of eezo fills the air as the vent cover swings open on its hinges. 

“I’m not sure what you’re playing at, Krios, but you might as well come down from there.” 

Dropping through the hole, Thane lands with a soft thud in the middle of the room and straightens, tucking his arms behind his back. Miranda sits in a lounge tucked beneath the window, glittering stars dancing in the background. He’s already noted the pistol balanced on one slender knee and the pulsing red of the locked door over his shoulder. 

They are two very different people with very different approaches in life. This much he knows from his short time aboard the Normandy. But he also knows that she is no stranger to killing, as much a tool of her master as he is of his. There will be no remorse, no hesitation, if she deems him a necessary casualty to achieve success. 

In this way, they are alike. 

“My apologies, Operative Lawson. I did not mean to intrude.” 

“That seems rather unlikely. Unless you have another explanation as to why you’re hovering above my chambers in the middle of the night?” 

“I…” he finds himself at a loss for words. 

She arches one slim eyebrow at him before raising a glass of wine to her lips. Transfixed by the liquid, shimmering currant in the dim light, Thane is no longer in Miranda's room, or even aboard the Normandy. 

“The flicker of red and blue on turquoise. Anger as deep as the Encompassing. His voice trembles. ‘Now you show up?’ Tears like quicksilver. A hand reaches for him. Wanting.” 

He blinks again, the memory fading as his surroundings come back into focus.   

“I see.” Miranda slips the pistol under the cushion of her chair and pushes herself to her feet, turning her back on him to gaze out the window. 

“I do not think that you do.” 

She chuckles, the sound dry and bitter in her throat. “You must be right. I’m sure you’re the only one who’s been given a second chance, but isn’t quite sure what to do with it.” 

Miranda guards her secrets as closely as he guards his own and her trust extends about as far as his. He cannot hazard a guess as to what she means, does not have access to the after-mission reports that she does, but her words strike a chord within him. 

The blue of her eyes—almost an exact match of the power she can invoke with the faintest of thoughts—meets his gaze over her shoulder. Her usual calculating gaze is…not gone, but overshadowed by a mixture of relief and hope and fear, feelings that Thane is all too aware of himself. 

“Perhaps I was wrong then,” he acknowledges. “It is…not easy, suddenly wanting something you’d made peace with not having.” The words tumble out and he’s not sure now what he means: Kolyat, or Shepard, or _living_ , because the three are helplessly tangled together in a way he cannot separate. 

Miranda has turned back to the window, her next words quiet, like she means them for the stars alone. “No. But it wasn’t about me to begin with.” She clears her throat and spins around to face him, crossing her arms over her white latex catsuit. “Now, if you’re done skulking…” 

He nods, turning toward the door, but halts when she calls his name. 

“Leave the way you came,” she says, head tilting toward the still-open vent. “I’d rather not give the crew anything to gossip about in the morning.” 

Hoisting himself back through the opening, Thane pulls himself into the narrow duct. He pauses, staring down into the room.

“Shepard has made a career of achieving the impossible,” he calls down to her. “We will make it back.” She says nothing and the vent cover swings closed behind him. 

The reassurance is as much for himself as for her because, finally, he has reasons to want to survive.

 


End file.
